The new APAC general counsel

This geographic realignment isn’t just about changing office addresses. It’s about navigating unprecedented operational complexity that spans multiple legal systems, languages, cultures, and regulatory frameworks. For today’s APAC general counsel, success requires new approaches to service delivery that can coordinate seamlessly across Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia while managing costs, ensuring compliance, and driving business value.

Regional decentralisation: A strategic shift

The decentralisation of APAC legal operations tells a compelling story in numbers. From 2017–18 to 2021–22, Hong Kong residents granted permanent residency in Australia more than doubled, jumping from approximately 1,900 to over 4,300 annual visas. Australia’s specialised talent visa scheme for Hongkongers received 2,866 applications between 2020 and 2023, with 1,339 approvals, primarily drawing professionals from digital technology, fintech, and legal sectors.

We’re seeing APAC roles that traditionally would have been headquartered in Hong Kong now being distributed across Singapore, Sydney, and Melbourne. Singapore has emerged as the primary alternative hub for south-east Asian operations, while Australia serves as the strategic base for broader Pacific Rim coordination.

This shift reflects broader geopolitical and economic considerations that extend far beyond legal services. Singapore’s established financial infrastructure and strategic south-east Asian position, combined with Australia’s stable regulatory environment and common law system, create attractive alternatives for companies seeking to maintain pan-Asian operations while optimising their regional strategy.

The evolving Hong Kong market

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While multinational corporations are diversifying their regional headquarters, Hong Kong remains a significant market with its own evolution. The departure of many Western businesses has created space for an influx of mainland Chinese companies using Hong Kong as their international hub, particularly for capital movement and Greater Bay Area operations.

This shift has transformed the business environment. Where Hong Kong once operated with a predominantly Western, English-language business culture, today’s market increasingly requires Mandarin and Cantonese capabilities. Major multinationals like Google have relocated their legal teams to Singapore, while companies like Uber have dramatically reduced Hong Kong operations in favour of Singapore-based regional coordination.

The linguistic and cultural evolution creates both challenges and opportunities. Companies with the right language capabilities and cultural understanding can serve this evolving market effectively, while those built for the traditional Western-oriented Hong Kong market must adapt their service delivery accordingly.

Multi-jurisdiction complexity

Managing legal operations across APAC means navigating complexity that few other regions can match. Consider the scope of responsibility for today’s APAC general counsel: coordinating legal support across common law systems in Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore alongside civil law jurisdictions in Japan, China, and much of south-east Asia.

Linguistic diversity alone presents significant challenges. With 15-plus languages commonly encountered across APAC legal operations, communication requirements vary dramatically by jurisdiction. Cultural business practices add another layer of complexity – Hong Kong clients increasingly prefer WeChat for business communications and meeting coordination, while Australian counterparts maintain traditional coffee-meeting approaches.

Recent cyber security legislation demonstrates the divergent compliance requirements:

• Singapore’s amended Cybersecurity Act (2024) requires reporting with penalties up to SG$200,000 or 10 per cent of turnover.
• Malaysia’s CSA mandates incident reporting within six hours, followed by detailed 14-day reports.
• Hong Kong’s Protection of Critical Infrastructure Bill takes effect in January 2026.
• Each jurisdiction maintains distinct data privacy regimes, from China’s PIPL to India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act.

For GCs managing operations across multiple jurisdictions, coordinating compliance while maintaining operational efficiency represents a constant balancing act.

The service delivery evolution

The conventional approach to APAC legal support – maintaining separate law firm relationships in each jurisdiction – creates significant coordination challenges. Most companies maintain local law firm relationships across six different geographies in Asia, trying to coordinate quality, costs, and communication across vastly different systems.

This fragmented approach creates quality inconsistencies, cost management complexity, and substantial coordination overhead across 12-plus time zones with varying cultural business practices.

Forward-thinking organisations are moving towards centralised service delivery models that maintain local expertise while providing unified coordination. This “distributed talent with centralised management” approach addresses complexity through strategic coordination.

Modern service providers can offer regional coordination with local expertise. For example, having 600-plus lawyers across APAC with 15 languages and nine regional bar qualifications allows clients to use a centralised contact point while accessing locally qualified lawyers across all regions.

This model provides unified project management, consistent quality standards, cost optimisation through centralised procurement, and coordinated compliance monitoring to reduce jurisdictional conflicts.

Technology as the regional enabler

Technology adoption is accelerating across APAC legal operations, with artificial intelligence leading the transformation. Major firms report that 60 per cent of their workforce now use generative AI tools daily for document review, contract analysis, and legal research.

General counsel increasingly expect outside counsel to provide AI-equipped lawyers, recognising that premium rates should deliver maximum efficiency. Recent studies show large language models achieving 92 per cent accuracy in legal invoice review compared to 72 per cent for experienced lawyers, while completing reviews in seconds at 99.97 per cent lower cost.

For APAC operations, AI tools are particularly valuable in addressing language and cultural barriers through advanced translation, local law databases, and cultural context engines. However, technology adoption remains uneven across the region, with many markets still relying on more advanced US implementations.

Strategic implications

The evolution towards integrated service delivery requires APAC general counsel to rethink procurement and vendor management strategies. Key considerations include:

• Vendor strategy: Balancing consolidated providers versus specialised local relationships requires careful evaluation of risk tolerance, cost priorities, and operational complexity.
• Technology integration: Evaluating partners’ AI implementation, cross-border collaboration tools, and integrated project management capabilities become essential.
• Risk management: Coordinated compliance monitoring across varying regulatory environments and timelines is crucial for multi-jurisdictional operations.
• Resource allocation: Centralised external coordination allows internal teams to focus on strategic business support rather than vendor management.

Future market opportunities

Beyond current regional consolidation, APAC presents additional market opportunities for strategic investment. Countries across south-east Asia and other regional markets represent the next evolution of APAC legal services investment, requiring continued evaluation of market entry strategies and resource allocation.

The companies that thrive will recognise the strategic advantage of integrated legal service delivery – moving beyond fragmented approaches towards models that leverage technology, centralised coordination, and distributed regional expertise.

The new APAC reality

For APAC general counsel, success in this evolving landscape requires three key capabilities:

1. Multi-jurisdictional coordination: Seamlessly managing diverse regulatory environments while maintaining cost efficiency and quality standards.

2. Technology integration: Leveraging AI and legal technologies to drive efficiency across all jurisdictions.

3. Strategic partnerships: Moving beyond transactional relationships towards integrated service delivery that provides genuine business value.

The transformation of APAC legal operations reflects broader changes in how global businesses approach complex, multi-jurisdictional challenges. The new APAC general counsel will be defined not by their ability to manage complexity, but by their success in making that complexity invisible to the business they support.

In a region where success increasingly depends on seamless cross-jurisdictional operations, the right legal service delivery model becomes not just a cost centre, but a strategic differentiator that turns APAC’s inherent complexity into a competitive advantage.

Jacob Flax is the managing director and head of APAC for Axiom.